Ai-Naidari Grammar
Nouns Both declensions have an "unmarked" case, where the word takes no ending in the plural and a'' -i in the singular. This is true even of second declension even though the endings are otherwise very different because in the before-times, in the long-long ago, extreme Abasement in speech involved using second declension endings to refer to yourself. There's some linguistic history there I have not yet uncovered. First Declension (People Only) Second Declension (everything else) Pronouns Pronouns are formed using the consonant-pronoun prefix followed by the caste-marker vowel and then finally the proper plural or singular noun case ending. So, for instance: Speaking of yourself as the object of a sentence to a caste equal: : L (first person consonant) + a (neutral/caste-equal marker) + n (vowel) th (accusative singular noun ending) : ''lanath Speaking of yourself as the object of a sentence, but abased, on the other hand, would yield: : launauth Further, interior vowels can be doubled for emphasis, so abject abasement would result in: : lau'aunauth With a glottal stop in the middle. I have not yet discovered whether the second pronoun remains an indicator of caste or tense. First Declension pronoun prefixes Second Declension Pronoun prefixes Verbs These prefixes go before the verb and inflect its use. Tense Vowels Action completion is indicated by a suffix: These are followed by (or preceded by) the Abased/Neutral/Implacative vowels, if they're used; it's not necessary. Verbs are built via infix, using the tense vowel, the pronoun consonant, a conditional prefix (if desired) and a completion-indicator suffix, thus: To know: kadled : I know: kad- + e (present tense) + l (first person pronoun) + -led: kadeled Passive tense requires flipping the tense and pronoun indicators: : I am known: ka + l (first person pronoun) + e (present tense) + dled: kaledled The active voice requires splitting the verb at the first syllable, after the consonant. For the passive voice, the split is again in the first syllable, but after the first vowel. Prefixes add flavor: : No kadeled: "May I know?" : Hha kadeled: I REALLY DON'T KNOW! Prefixes can be layered: : jzi no kadeled: May I know!? Adjectives At this point I'm not entirely sure on adjectives. From what I can see adjectives that modify objects (things in the second declension, the “not-people” declension) go after the noun they modify (so, “the horse beautiful”). But adjectives that modify people go in front of the noun (so, “the beautiful woman”) unless you are effacing them as another part of using the Abased mode (so, to be humble, “the woman beautiful”). There are also separate rules for reflexives; in sentences like "She was beautiful." I am almost completely certain that the adjective is treated like a verb, so instead of saying “she was beautiful” what happens is more like “she beautiful-with-verb-endings.” I also think adjectives might be unmodified unless they indicate a specific thing... so if you say “a beautiful woman”, you use the adjective without modifiers, but if you say "that beautiful woman (that one, over there!)," then it gets something added to it. Caste Markers and Word Order When speaking of oneself: When speaking of others: Putting the rank marker after your name/pronoun/etc is humble and modest. When respecting others, you put your marker last and theirs first. When you intend to abase others, you put yours first and theirs last. Word Order Normal/unranked speech: SVO 'Abased: '''OSV '''Implacable: '''SOV Showing Respect familial/equals - plain pronouns to show respect - name instead of 'you' to show based, name with prefix instead of plain pronoun NOTE HERE SAYS "for" is different preposition from "on behalf of" Interjections and Word Usages "What" as in "what is that" is ''sol. But "what" as in responding to someone calling your name is kei ("yes") or toj ("please"). Toj toj is enthusiastic "yes please" in the sense of Internet enthusiasm. Tadi is good, great, excellent, what someone says instead of "that's cool!" Offsite Links to Discussions *Verb Infixes (Archive.org) *Passive Voice (Archive.org) *Verb Examples (Archive.org) *Pronouns and Caste Markers (Archive.org) *Implacable/Abased Speech (Archive.org) *Unmarked Noun Forms in First and Second Declensions (Archive.org) *Ai-Naidari Homework: One Sentence, Abased (Archive.org) Category:Linguistics